Just Married.
When I was younger, I was boy crazy. I was the female Pepe Le Pew. There was nothing I wanted more than the attention and affection of whatever boy I happened to be in love with at the time. Some of it was normal pre-teen and teenage girl stuff, hormone related and stupidity-induced. Yet, a lot of it was due to the fact that I only felt beautiful and desired when I was liked or loved or wanted by a boy.
For example, when I was in second grade, I was in love with a brown skinned, skinny boy with a beautiful smile. Our interactions were limited to him pointing at me and laughing and calling me cockroach. Yet, I still yearned to be his.
One day, I came to school with my hair freshly pressed and bouncing. That was the only day he wanted me to be his girlfriend. I remember sitting with my friends at the back table to complete our classwork together as I leaned my head against the backrest of the chair, smiling, with my eyes closed. I had butterflies for blood cells that day.
As I’ve transitioned into adulthood some of that has remained. There have been plenty of times where I only felt beautiful and desired only if I was in a relationship or being pursued by a man. And this isn’t unique to me, I know. Just today, I was listening to my dear students talk (as they often always are, much to my chagrin). One of my boys was telling his female friend how another young lady said, “you don’t look better than her.” This made my girl student so upset that she said, “I’m going to go up to her and say something to her.”
A girl/woman’s beauty is her greatest prize because in a way it guarantees that she will be seen, cherished, desired, and chosen. Heavy is the female heart whose beauty is overlooked, denied, or disregarded.
I’ve suffered from a heavy heart because of that. And as an unmarried woman, I can fear that my beauty will not be seen and validated by one who will call me his own. In fact, that has been one of my greatest fears for a very long time.
But these days, that fear is waning. It’s waning because as I learn more about Jesus’ heart towards me, my need to be validated by a man is shrinking. As Jesus teaches me how He views me and His heart towards me, I’m beginning to allow my heart to lean more towards his loving light, His warm embrace, and His gentle leading. And as we do this dulcet dance together, I’m learning what it means to be married because I already am.
In a marriage, if you’re familiar with scripture, you know that women are called to submit to their husbands and that used to scare me because I thought it meant control. But as I learn that submission is to be done out of love, desire, trust, and intimacy my fears are subsiding.
In this season of singleness, I am learning what submission looks like because I am learning how Jesus leads. He doesn’t control me though He has all the power in the world. He doesn’t demand my obedience though He requires it if I’m in a relationship with Him.
Instead, the words that He speaks over me sound thus: “You are covered. I have placed a crown of righteousness upon your head. You are forgiven. You are cloaked in my loving kindness.” He’s wooing me because He wants my heart. He wants my heart because He knows his hands are my safest place. He wants my eternal good, which is Himself. He gave up Himself, so that I would receive His fullness. And if I choose not to submit, it is simply because as Steffany Gretzinger has said, “I have not received revelation of His love.” True submission is always a response to true love.
Recently, an acquaintance of mine shared that communion is in essence a marriage proposal. She shared the following excerpt from Ann Voskamp’s book, “The Broken Way”:
He’d up and said that when a man had decided whom he’d chosen to marry, his father would pour a cup of wine and pass it down to his son. The son would then turn to the young woman he loved, and with all the solemnity of an oath before Almighty YHWH Himself, the young man would hold out the cup of wine to the woman and ask for her hand in marriage. He would ask with these words: “This cup is a new covenant in my blood, which I offer to you.”
The pastor had told me how he’d sat back, a bit stunned. This Orthodox Jewish rabbi was describing first-century marriage customs, a marriage proposal–with the words Jesus had used that night: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which I offer to you.”
The Last Supper was a marriage covenant.
Revelations like these, that show the sheer romance at the heart of Christ, give new meaning to scriptures like, “We love for He first loved us.”
How deep that love is. How deep His love is. How wide. How much heft and gravitas.
Now I have an inkling more of an experiential understanding of what Paul meant by, “[Eph 3:18 NLT] 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.”
I want that power, I pray for that power to understand the multidimensional love of Christ. A love that colors in the dull shades of what seems like a wilderness of singlehood. The hues, values, and pigments of His love tell me, “I am yours and You are mine.”
Friend, as you draw close to Him, I know His whispers to you will be painted with the same colors and your heart will be wooed by the same sweet breath of the Beloved Bridegroom.
Love and Light,
Kourtney Naomi
